Staff Software Engineer - Backend (AI Platform)
Careem is building the Everything App for the greater Middle East — making it easy to move around, order food and groceries, manage payments, and more. Our purpose is simple: to simplify and improve people’s lives and build an awesome organisation that inspires.
Since 2012, Careem has enabled earnings for over 2.5 million Captains, simplified the lives of more than 70 million customers, and built a platform where the region’s best talent and entrepreneurs thrive. We operate in 70+ cities across 10 countries, from Morocco to Pakistan.
We’re now entering our next chapter — one powered by AI. We’re looking for AI talent: curious problem-solvers who know how to apply AI to build tools, automate workflows, and create real impact. Whether it’s streamlining operations, enhancing customer experience, or reimagining internal systems — we want people who can make Careem work smarter and move faster.
The Mission
We believe the transformative potential of AI is significantly under-realised in our region. To bridge this gap, we are incubating a new division within Careem dedicated to Enterprise AI Transformation.
We are reimagining and building the future of work to simplify and improve how businesses function in the era of GenAI with WorkOS: a next-generation ‘operating system’ designed to deploy, orchestrate, and improve AI agents across every customer and operational journey (and increasingly autonomously). This isn’t just automation; it’s about creating a hybrid workforce where self-learning AI agents handle the heavy lifting, empowering our people to focus on the highest-value, most creative work.
The Team
This group operates as a startup within Careem with a distinct mandate: move fast, build boldly, and deliver production-grade AI systems that fundamentally change how the region leverages technology.
The Opportunity
We are looking for an exceptional founding Backend Engineer to build the WorkOS platform. This is a role for a systems-thinker who wants to work at the intersection of high-scale distributed systems and AI orchestration. You will be responsible for building the "brain" of WorkOS, the engine that deploys and manages autonomous agents across the region’s most complex operational journeys at massive scale.
As one of the first engineers in WorkOS, you will have a disproportionate impact on our technical foundation, culture, and the speed at which we move from 0 to 1.
What You’ll Do
- Architect and Build the WorkOS Engine: Design and build the scalable backend services and architectures required to orchestrate complex AI workflows and real-time data streaming. Leverage novel technologies to build cutting-edge capabilities.
- Set the Engineering Gold Standard: As a founding member, you will establish our backend best practices, from CI/CD and observability to security and system integrity, ensuring a high-velocity but rigorous engineering culture.
- Solve for Distributed Complexity: Navigate the unique challenges of integrating AI agents into legacy enterprise stacks, ensuring low-latency communication and robust data consistency.
- Database design: Build our data infrastructure, leveraging relational, schemaless, and vector stores to power the platform and create persistent brains for our Agents.
- Full-Cycle Ownership: Own the lifecycle of the platform, from rapid prototyping of new agent capabilities to maintaining production-grade systems at enterprise scale.
- Drive AI-Accelerated Engineering: Constantly experiment with AI-assisted development to move faster than traditional teams, while maintaining a bar for superb technical quality and craft.
- Lead Pioneer Deployments: While building the core platform, you will occasionally lead the charge on first-of-their-kind implementations for strategic partners, ensuring our tech solves real-world operational complexity.
- Operate with High Agency: In this lean, startup-style environment, you will be responsible for outcomes over inputs, rolling your sleeves up to code and balancing investments in the long-term technical roadmap with the need to ship value quickly.
What You’ll Need:
- 8–12+ years of professional backend engineering experience, with significant tenure acting as a Staff Engineer or Technical Lead for complex, high-scale distributed systems.
- Mastery of Backend Systems: Deep expertise in languages like Python, Go, or Node.js, with a proven track record of architecting concurrency, microservices, and high-throughput data pipelines.
- AI-Native Infrastructure Depth: Hands-on experience with LLM orchestration (LangChain, etc.), vector databases (Pinecone, Milvus), and RAG architectures at a production-grade level.
- Systems-Level Visionary: The ability to design "platform-first", thinking in terms of APIs, modularity, and extensibility so that the WorkOS core can support infinite customer use cases.
- Obsession with Performance: A specialist's focus on latency and system observability; you believe that AI interactions must feel "instant" and "bulletproof" to be valuable.
- Startup-level Autonomy: Comfortable navigating a "0-to-1" environment where you define the technical roadmap and ship high-quality code without a playbook.
- Willingness to work on-site full time in UAE, to foster the high-intensity collaboration required for this incubation phase.
- Experience with enterprise software transformation or legacy system integration is a significant plus.
What You’ll Receive:
- A Blank Canvas and Live Ammunition: The rare opportunity to build a "0-to-1" product while immediately deploying it into the real-world operations of a regional giant. No "sandbox" projects here, you’ll be shipping code that moves people and goods on day one. This is a huge opportunity to create impact in our region.
- Architecting the Engine: We’re a lean, impact-obsessed team operating with total autonomy. You’ll be free from corporate bureaucracy and legacy baggage, focused entirely on building the core orchestration layer and agentic frameworks that will serve as the "brain" of the region’s enterprises.
- Direct Collaboration with Leadership: Direct engagement with Careem and enterprise client leadership, in addition to working side-by-side with the WorkOS founding team including Magnus Olsson (Careem’s original Co-founder).
- Competitive Compensation: Including direct equity in this new division. Our philosophy is meritocratic: we want you to own a meaningful stake in the value you create.